164

I like Unity very much. Recently, I installed Compiz manager and Nautilus Elementary also then tried to Play. During some of my playing around, Unity's clock applet has vanished.

I want to make it show the time again. How can I do this?

1
  • Because this question is "protected", I can't add this as an answer, so posting it as a comment: Another possible solution in some cases is to make sure your ~/.profile or similar isn't setting something like LANG=C; export LANG... that broke this for me, if I had weekday or date stuff turned on (just time per se it would work). So, I found a way to disable that line of my profile for unity config's run through my .profile, while still setting it normally (per my preference, generally), and that fixed it for me (after logout/in).
    – lindes
    Oct 23, 2015 at 19:54

7 Answers 7

293

Having date and time gone on Ubuntu 13.10 beta, after next reboot, this command solves the problem:

killall unity-panel-service
11
  • 5
    @That's working for me.
    – gotqn
    Oct 23, 2013 at 16:55
  • 13
    Why is this obvious bug still around after 2 major releases?
    – alex.p
    Jun 26, 2014 at 18:00
  • 3
    Solved it for me in 14 Jul 27, 2014 at 19:43
  • 7
    Solves problem in 14.10.
    – Daniel
    Nov 5, 2014 at 13:00
  • 4
    solves it for 14.04LTS
    – Reya276
    Jun 12, 2015 at 20:05
60

Reinstall indicator-datetime. It should be installed by default, but just in case you have removed it unknowingly, it is best to run the install command again.

sudo apt-get install indicator-datetime

Next, we are going to reconfigure the date time:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure --frontend noninteractive tzdata

Lastly, restart unity.

sudo killall unity-panel-service
6
  • 2
    This was the solution that worked for me. Running fully patched Ubuntu 13.10 on 23rd Feb 2014. Thanks!
    – Kim
    Feb 23, 2014 at 15:50
  • Yes, it worked.
    – Kerem
    Jun 25, 2014 at 22:33
  • 1
    the last command was sufficient and worked for me on 14.04
    – D3L
    Sep 2, 2014 at 2:46
  • Work very well.
    – Bonn
    Jan 24, 2015 at 16:15
  • Thanks, this was the solution for me, too (Ubuntu 14.04).
    – rplantiko
    May 25, 2015 at 15:36
36
  1. Click the Ubuntu logo in the top-left.

  2. Search for and open "Time and Date".

  3. Open the Clock tab.

  4. Make sure the box "Show a clock in menu bar" is ticked.

    enter image description here

Also make sure the package indicator-datetime is installed.

5
  • 43
    Interestingly enough, when what happens on my machine (13.10) this whole tab is greyed out (albeit "Show a clock" is checked). Nov 28, 2013 at 10:52
  • 22
    @WaldirLeoncio when that happens (on 14.04) I found the solution is "killall unity-panel-service".
    – Stéphane
    Oct 19, 2014 at 18:08
  • 1
    Reinstalling indicator-datetime worked for me. I think I accidentally uninstalled it when I removed some evolution packages. Jan 20, 2015 at 17:53
  • 1
    Sometimes when ubuntu base is updated and I find that date panel disappears. It will come back when I boot again. But doing what @Stéphane suggested works for me.
    – eshwar
    May 6, 2015 at 4:47
  • For me this command worked: pkill -f datetime Apr 21, 2017 at 10:28
19

Double check that indicator-datetime Install indicator-datetime is installed. Go to terminal and type

sudo apt-get install indicator-datetime

Now log out and then back in.

3
  • 5
    In my case this was the solution. I had actually removed everything related to Evolution including the Evolution Server and somehow that relates to also removing the indicator-datetime. I simply installed all that again and it worked. Mar 18, 2012 at 13:40
  • 4
    OP's requested comment: instead of logging in and out (which is slow, painful, loses your state, and smells of microsoft), you can kill unity-panel-service using ps -ef | grep unity-panel-service and kill <APPROPRIATE PID> This will then immediately respawn a new panel service which loads the indicator.
    – Mochan
    Dec 31, 2012 at 0:25
  • 3
    Thanks for this, in my case I had it installed but a apt-get purge indicator-datetime and then and install was needed.
    – squareborg
    Sep 16, 2013 at 12:59
6

On my computer, Unity shows word "Time" instead of the real time.

On Ubuntu 11 (and above?) /etc/timezone can't be empty (and it was). This wasn't an issue on previous versions.

To regenerate the TimeZone file just do:

sudo dpkg-reconfigure --frontend noninteractive tzdata

It works for me.

1

If that doesn't work you can try restoring your defaults.

From your unity session, try re-launching unity like this:

unity --reset
0

If you not found Date-Time on panel then try to find out on whether its hide or not. If not then try to find out its installed or not.

If you find that Date-Time not install then you just install it. 1. apt-get install indicator-datetime 2. killall unity-panel-service

You not need to Logoff or reset Unnity. Just check on your Desktop's Right Corner.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .